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This blog contains opinions, experiences, thoughts and observations of the author from his day to day living.It is subject to comments, criticisms and corrections, and all will be dealt with constructively and do leave your comments I would love to hear from you.There is no intention to offend, discriminate nor degrade anybody or anything for that matter, only shared feelings, emotions and angsts at the moment.Welcome to my world.

Thursday, September 8, 2011

Status Hanging In A Balance

My host country's government is strictly implementing their "Saudization" or "Hafiz" program giving priorities to their locals especially by providing employment both in the private and public sectors as per the directive of the king himself. He would even give incentives and rewards to companies who will exceed the given percentage of locals that they would hire.
Prioritizing, so much that most companies are "forced" to lay-off their existing foreign workforce in order to reach or surpass the "quota" given by the Ministry of Labor. According to the report in the Arab News , 7 Sept 2011 print, "Hafiz is an initiative to help job seekers and is a way to demonstrate to citizens hat the government is aware of unemployment." Actually this is good news for the local Saudis as most of the them are unemployed and in need of a proper outlet for their acquired skills and trainings. I am not against this in the truest sense of the word, however, I am into the reality that some of these locals abuse such privileges to the extreme.
My housemate who works in a government hospital as a nurse would tell me every night "horror" stories about how the local interns and nurses behave inside the facilities. So much so that I am scared now to go to any hospital that has more locals than foreign workers. He would relate to me how in his section which is the blood bank, the local male nurses was so lazy that they would come to work late and leave too early and while at work, they would not do so much but hang around with each other smoking, chatting, drinking tea or just go around from department to department and chat the time away. One scary story is how when asked to sort, catalogue and rack extracted and tested bloods inside the refrigerator they would almost always mixed it up! Imagine having your blood test only to find out you have HIV due to carelessness? My housemate would often repeat all the stacking himself just to make sure every thing is in order. He would also relay to me how they would just sit all day and when asked to do something they would exclaim that they are "Saudis" and should not be asked or ordered to do anything when they don't feel like it! How about these same group pay their foreign colleagues to do their work for them? That they would offer a certain fee say to do the rounds for them? To take their night shift in exchange cause they have a party at a esteraha and does not take their oath-taken profession seriously? How is that for Saudization? The sad news is my housemate already received his termination notice as they have told him that his government employee number was already given to another, a local, and has only three months before they will give him an exit.
I know that my host country will suffer tremendously economically because of this maybe for a few years, I am not undermining the locals, but they need to realize that when it comes to work being responsible, dedicated and hardworking is the key to succeed, and they have a lot to learn and I mean A LOT! However there are those who were educated, most probably in another country, who already had the values and ethics that is necessary in order to fit into the business industry or to any industry for that matter but they are a minority and the bums are the majority, and they may even get into the habit as bumming can be contagious.
Back home, I am still hoping that my own country would think that the lives of their so called "new heroes" are not all milk and honey. Our status' hangs in a balance that the slightest wind could tip the scale and we can be asked to start packing and be sent home, where that's another story as what's waiting for us home? When companies prefer the younger generations who has less experiences and the has beens who were the skilled are second choices. So I'll stay here and make the most of the limited time I have, work hard and try to be irreplaceable if I can, until I also receive that same notice and then...I don't know.

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